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Dr. Xavier Amador

Last night was the season finale ofBethenny Ever After. And it really felt like both the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. Julie Plake left, Jason Hoppy and Bethenny Frankel finally moved into their new apartment after a season-long HGTV show of decorating it, and Bethenny announced that the talk show is really happening.

I have to say, I’ve long had a love-hate relationship with Bethenny. I’ve loved her on Real Housewives of New York. I’ve adored her on Bethenny Getting Married?. And I’ve resented her and been in awe of her for complaining about having it all while actually accomplishing it all on BEA.

With that being said, I think it’s time for the Bethenny of reality TV to come to an end. She’s seems done. Frankly, the show seems done. And I think most of the viewers are ready to see the silly, fun Bethenny they fell in love with again. Which hopefully will happen on her talk show.

I can’t say enough about how much Bethenny is willing to let it all hang out – literally and metaphorically – and give us the very best and very worst of herself, but it seems she’s maybe given too much and it’s time to move on. I mean, case in point – do we even care about the revolving door of employees that have now come to dominate the show as Bethenny’s so-called friends and confidantes? Nope. Sorry, Jacs!

Last night’s episode of Bethenny Ever After felt like the end of an era. Bethenny Frankel rehashed the past and she and Jason Hoppy seemed to be finally moving forward in a positive direction. We were treated to several montages of Bethenny’s life on reality TV over the years and although this isn’t the finale it seems to be setting the stage to tie up a bunch of loose ends in preparation for next week’s final farewell.

Things begin with Jason and Bethenny visiting their new apartment, which is still under construction, but finally seems to be moving along. Bethenny is having some issues with the TV eclipsing the bar and since this is quite literally an apartment built on booze, sweat, and tears – Skinnygirl needs an altar.

Really though, she’s right. Not only does Bethenny Frankel Hoppy love her some libations, but an homage to the glorious liquor gods who made her rich seems fitting. I also think she needs a shrine to Andy Cohen.

We are treated to a montage of Skinnygirl over the years from Bethenny convincing the ever-so-classy ladies of Real Housewives of New Yorkto try a Skinnygirl margarita to learning she’d sold the brand to BeamGlobal.

Next up, Bethenny and Bryn head to Spanish class. Bethenny talks about wanting Bryn to have all the opportunities she didn’t have – namely parents that love and care for her and want to be involved in her life. Bethenny marvels at how perfect Bryn is and how unique. She describes Bryn as her own signature brand and the life of the party. Bethenny tells us her priorities have seriously changed since becoming a mommy and she wouldn’t want to miss a thing. Which is nice. She does seem totally enthralled with Bryn. I hope she always remembers that business is just business.

Side note: I love that Bethenny and Jason walk Bryn so many places.

It’s montage galore up in here! There’s another montage of Bryn‘s life and Bethenny‘s pregnancy. I cannot believe how big Bryn has gotten and how tiny Bethenny has become. Time really has flown.

On last night’s episode of Bethenny Ever After, the Skinnygirl team headed to Aspen for the launch of Skinnygirl White Cranberry Cosmo. Bethenny Frankel and Jason Hoppy continued to wrestle over whether or not Jason should work for Skinnygirl and Bethenny got a reminder of what it was like to be single and twenty-two again.

Things begin, oh I don’t even know where they began? What were they even doing? Oh that’s right… hanging out on the street corner! Which seems as close to Bethenny‘s natural habitat as a cougar in the city can get! Bethenny is buying art for the new apartment and congratulating herself on being such a renegade, so cutting edge. She spends thousands – ON STREET ART! No one rich in the history of the world has ever done that. Well, at least according to Bethenny’s revisionist history.

Bethenny buys a American Flag painting. I’m not sure why. It was hideous and looked like it was a papier-mâché accident. I kept waiting for her to try and commission one with the Skinnygirl logo on it. Which actually would’ve been neat. She could hang it in the office.

On last night’s episode of Bethenny Ever After, everywomanBethenny Frankel continued to deal with marital drama, running an empire drama, and renovating a multi-million dollar apartment drama. In between doing everything she took a break to ball bust with friend Jake and do yoga with food blogger Nick Feitel. Who quite obviously would have rather been eating Bethenny’s falafel than doing downward dog.

Things start out with Bethenny and the team learning that meek little intern Maggie has quit. Bethenny probably insulted and embarrassed her too many times under the guise of keeping it real. Maggie likely turned in her two-weeks notice and raced on down to her lawyer’s office to start the lawsuit accusing Bethenny of disparaging her reputation on national television and forcing her into dangerous waters.

Bethenny is confused about how a paddle boat trip and a free vacation were the straw that broke the camel’s back but hey, no real loss there. Everyone kinda snickers about what a weakling Maggs is who can’t hang with the tough old broads and only Julie Plake seems to feel guilty for perhaps heaping too much pressure onto a twelve-year-old who has barely graduated from college.

Side note: I can really appreciate Bethenny‘s success and when she was basically running her one-drink wonder of a business out of her studio apartment and funding it with her Real Housewives of New York paycheck, I can understand hiring some just out of college kid to be an assistant. But now that this is a major business I just cannot believe she is leaving all of the administrative and executive assistant duties in Jackie‘s hands. Isn’t Jackie like 22 with not much experience?

I mean, clearly Bethenny worries about the level of professionalism since she has brought it up several times – and clearly that’s why she is hoping to include her husband into the business side of things, but I just do not understand why she does not have real professionals in her employ? Perhaps she does and this whole Skinnygirl at home business nonsense is just a storyline.

Well, I managed to imbibe myself through another episode of Bethenny Ever After. It was more of the same with the marital drama and the non-stop product plugs. We’re in the mid-season slump here where the storylines get staid and the characters seem too cranky and the viewers are looking for a resolution and a change of pace. Bethenny Frankel and Jason Hoppy continue to miscommunicate in their marriage, and despite that, they are considering making Skinnygirl enterprises a family business. At least they’ll finally have something to talk about! And Gina returned and blessedly hasn’t changed a bit!

Things begin with Bethenny meeting with her interior decorator Brooke, to make furniture choices for the new apartment. It seems Brooke is a bigger drama queen than Bethenny as she starts to need Xanax at the thought of Julie Plake leaving. Perhaps, it’s because Julie is the only person who can reign in Bethenny.

Next, Bethenny heads to Beam HQ where she is helping to oversee brand direction. Bethenny explains that just because Beam bought her out—identity, soul and all—she’s still involved, because Skinnygirl is more than booze—it’s now BMI tests, and depends (for when your Skinnygirl cleanse causes a mishap), and screwdrivers and tampons and mascara and vibrators—and anything a girl could possibly want or need that can be made in the colors of red and white, and have a photo of Bethenny slapped on the front of it. Skinnygirl deodorant – you got it!

Then, they do a new cocktail flavor test. Bethenny eschews every flavor, but White Cranberry Cosmo, which they plan to unveil in Aspen by Christmas. Pressure! Poor underprivileged Bethenny is excited about the launch party because she grew up skiing and will get to snowboard for the first time in years. And guess what she’s wearing? A Skinnygirl snowboarding suit!

Next, Bethenny heads to the marble yard, where she has a huge multi-contractor meltdown over bathroom plans. She loves being the center of attention in all of this mess and lecturing people on not communicating. She also loves pretending she has no control, while playing the diplomat amongst the professional renovators, who are all just hoping for their chance at a Bravo show of their own. Outside, she prays to a statue that everyone will get along and her apartment will actually happen.

Jason and Jackie pay a visit to the jeweler who made Bethenny‘s wedding ring. After last year’s birthday meltdown (Birthdays by Bravo!) Jason is walking on eggshells and feels a lot of pressure to make this one perfect. He is thinking of getting the setting changed on her engagement ring, because after less than two years of marriage, Bethenny is unhappy with it. A skinnygirl is never satisfied! And think about what that says about your marriage, Jason! Even the jewelers were like, ‘uhhh… dude – really? Not a good sign!’

Bethenny Frankel is making the TV rounds promoting her marital meltdown on this season of Bethenny Ever After. This is no surprise for the woman who apparently thinks nothing is sacred – not even taking a pregnancy test.

First up, Bethenny hit up The Tonight Show to discuss how her marriage was a mess during filming, but luckily things between herself and husband Jason Hoppy have improved. “[The] second year was way more difficult than the first,” Bethenny explained. “I was pregnant when I got married, so we were all excited about the baby and the wedding.”

“The first two years are challenging, but now we’re coming into a better rhythm. We got married older, so we are accepting each other now,” Bethenny adds.

Bethenny and Jason’s dilemmas certainly affected filming as we watched them go from happy and exuberant, to miserable and testy over the course of three seasons. Bethenny is admitting they were both at fault for the problems and have learned how to handle miscommunication. “I’m an initiator of arguments,” Bethenny confesses. “And he’s the escalator.”

“I’ll light that fire, and then there’s a big fire and I’m like ‘Oh my God, who put that fire there, what happened?'” Luckily the couple has been in therapy and they are learning how to treat each other.

And despite incessant rumors that the two are headed for a divorce, Bethenny insists that couldn’t be farther from the truth. “We’re together, we’re committed, we work on it, and we’re in love. And we’re in it.”

Unsurprisingly, Bethenny is giving credit to the infamous lost at sea-gate for their reconnection. The reality star appeared on Anderson with Anderson Cooper today where she once again insisted they were really, truly, honestly lost at sea and the Coast Guard really, truly, honestly came to their relief – or were at least called.

“We got on it at 6 at night, it was freezing, we were in Block Island, we were laying down, my husband got terrible sea sickness and all of a sudden I felt a big crash. A wave hit us and we were in 10 feet of water when we should have been in 150 or some big number of feet, and the GPS went out and the next thing you know I heard the captain saying, ‘Maria Cristina to the Coast Guard,'” she recounts of her harrowing experience of 15 minutes without a GPS. What did they do for centuries, I wonder?

Bethenny insists the episode was very real to her and regardless of the true severity of the situation, she was extremely nervous.”We were freaking out. We were with my camera crew and I was like, ‘Oh my God this is about them too.’ One of the guys can’t swim, we were panic stricken,” she insists.

“So, by the way, to hear someone say that it was fake was very insulting because I was freaking out. … the whole thing was horrendous.”

The positive of the trip was that she and Jason actually communicated and learned to rely upon each other. Maybe that was all part of Dr. Amador‘s evil plan? Maybe he faked getting lost at sea?! “The good news, we did not argue — my husband and I — we actually got along very well. No one blamed anybody for dragging them on this ship of fools,” Bethenny recalls.

Bethenny’s appearance on Anderson was not limited to discussing playing Gilligan’s Island, the former Real Housewives of New York star also talked the beginning days of appearing on the show and all the changes that made her want to leave. “Well, when we first started it was way more fun. When we first started it was called, ‘Manhattan Moms.’ It was a totally different show, I didn’t know it was ‘Real Housewives’ — I wasn’t even a housewife,” Bethenny remembers.

“Then as it went on, people become more knowledgeable about what the show is and they watch other seasons and other casts and there is a preconceived notion of how to act. That’s different then when I started, when I started it really was fun — it was a new adventure,” Bethenny explains, echoing what viewers have noticed in recent years seasons of the Housewives franchises.

She admits she is glad she signed on, and of course, had some serious success because of her involvement. “I do have a respect for, well respect’s not the right word, I have a nostalgia for the five of us that started together. It did create so many opportunities for all of us and I can remember back to when it was me, Jill [Zarin], The Countess, Ramona [Singer].” What about Alex McCord – did Bethenny just block her out?

Bethenny also talked her own reality television guilty pleasure – Jersey Shore! “Well, I don’t even know why I do because it gives me anxiety,” she reveals. “I’m like it’s just so filthy … You couldn’t give me $10 million to lay in that smoosh bed, much less smoosh in that smoosh bed.”

While discussing reality TV, she had a very real mishap of her own! Bethenny managed to traumatize the audience when she full-on mooned them; revealing her hot pink panties during a dance contest with Anderson. For once, I don’t think was a plug for Lazy Lingerie or Skinnygirl Shapers or whatever it is she’s pimping now – I think it was a legitimate “Oops” moment and she handled it with dignity. Hey, at least she wasn’t wearing a thong! A clip of Bethenny’s intimate exposure is below.

And speaking of being shipwrecked, a new episode of Bethenny Ever After airs tonight where we will see Bethenny and Jason get lost amongst the waves during a therapeutic sailing trip to Block Island.

Bethenny Ever After airs tonight on Bravo at 9/10c.

DO YOU BELIEVE JASON AND BETHENNY WILL MAKE IT? DID SHE REALLY BELIEVE SHE WAS LOST AT SEA OR WAS IT A PLOT FOR HER SHOW? IS BETHENNY ACCURATE THAT THE HOUSEWIVES ARE ACTING ON RHONY?

CLICK THE CONTINUE READING BUTTON TO SEE BETHENNY FLASH HER SKIVVIES ON ANDERSON!